This blog is intended to provide the reader with important world news with an emphasis on Middle East and North Africa. It will publish news, analyses, comments, and opinions concerning those two regions. However, We welcome any comments, news or opinions which are related to their countries. You can visit too www.asswak-alarab.com for more information.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Syria’s Gamble On Gaddafi Fails

By Osman Mirghani

Unlike
previous years, the annual television drama series were not the greatest
concern for people this Ramadan. The Arab world was engrossed following news of
uprisings and revolutions, especially the details of the scenes in Libya and
Syria, where the confrontation reached its peak between those demanding rights,
freedoms and change, and regimes that have proven that they will go to any
lengths in order to cling to power. If the Libyans were celebrating the Eid
holiday amidst an atmosphere of joy, having achieved important victories
bringing them closer to completing their revolution, then the Syrian's Eid was
joyless, amidst the continuing suppression and abuse, and the regime insisting
on utilizing a single language to confront the protests, namely the language of
bullets and brutality.

The
celebratory scenes as the Libyan rebel forces entered Tripoli was spoiled only
by images of the dead, stories of executions carried out by Gaddafi troops
before their defeat, the flight of the remnants of the regime, and the
disappearance of the Colonel. How grotesque and painful were the images
presented by television channels, showing the remains of burnt bodies, as well
as the remains of those shot dead discovered in a building used by Gaddafi's
battalions as a detention center, in a Tripoli neighborhood? This was not an
isolated crime; Human Rights organizations have, so far, documented the murder
of dozens of detainees executed by Gaddafi's battalions shortly before their
retreat, in the face of the Libyan rebels advance into Tripoli.

From
the early days of the Libyan revolution, it was clear that the Gaddafi regime
would devote all of its efforts to suppression and abuse, and would not
hesitate to commit the most heinous crimes to confront those rebelling against
it. Gaddafi set the tone in his first speech, in which he called [on his
people] to "crush the rats". Likewise, his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi,
who was aspiring to inherit his father’s throne, did the same when he threatened
the people and cities of Libya with rivers of blood. He said that "instead
of weeping over 84 dead people (meaning the death toll that sparked the initial
uprising in Benghazi), you will weep over hundreds of thousands of dead".

There
was no doubt that the Colonel's regime would exercise the utmost degree of its
madness, and commit the worst atrocities, in order to cling onto power that it
has yet to be satisfied with even after 42 years of rule. Early on we saw
features of destruction, sabotage and murder perpetrated by Gaddafi's
battalions when they entered the city of Zawiya. These forces did not hesitate
even to destroy gravestones with bulldozers. Following this, we saw the impact
of the indiscriminate bombing of Misrata, as well as the Gaddafi regime’s use
of snipers to prevent people from moving freely around the city. The regime's
policy was one of revenge against all Libyan cities and people who had rebelled
against it, and thus it repeated the process of besieging cities, bombarding
them, and cutting off water and electricity supply to the residents.

The
rebels claim that the Gaddafi forces arrested more than 50,000 people since the
start of the uprising, and that while they have been able to release around
10,000 detainees, the fate of many others remains unknown. Some prisoners
managed to escape from Gaddafi's detention centers as the rebels consolidated
their grip on the regime, yet hundreds of bodies of Libyan detainees have been
found executed by the Gaddafi forces before they withdraw in the face of
defeat. However many remain missing to date, raising fears that more mass
graves left by the regime's forces may be uncovered.

Ironically,
those belonging to Gaddafi's battalions who had fallen into the hands of the
rebels told a journalist from the Reuters news agency – who was able to visit a
detention center in a Tripoli neighborhood – that they hoped to be treated well
[in rebel captivity], and that there should be a new Libya which respects human
rights! If those who have attacked, tortured and killed innocent people
remembered that the tables might be turned on them in the future, would they
have committed such atrocities and abuses? Yet power corrupts, and can blind!
Despotic regimes usually produce security and military apparatus dominated by a
culture of suppression, with the main concern being intimidating and
subjugating the people.

The
success of the Libyan revolution, and its resilience in the face of all
instruments of force and suppression used by the Colonel's regime, sends a
message to the Damascus regime, especially as there are numerous reports that
the Syrian regime – in the early days of the Libyan uprising – supported the
Colonel Gaddafi regime in its confrontation of its own people. If the Syrian
regime hopes to see a policy of suppression and force succeed in putting an end
to the Libyan revolution, then its hopes have been dashed and perhaps it has
learned its lesson. However, experience would suggest that there is no one [in
Syria] who wants to learn, or wants to understand the message of the people who
are rising up and demanding change.

Although
it can see the Gaddafi regime collapsing and reeling, the al-Assad regime
continues to bet on the policy of suppression, oppression and persecution, to
end the [Syrian] people's uprising. The [Syrian] regime was quick to respond to
the Arab League’s call for an end to the bloodshed, the introduction of a
ceasefire, and for al-Assad to listen to the legitimate demands of the people,
only this response was an attack on the Arab position and an announcement that
the Arab League’s statement was of no value and that Damascus would act as if
it had never been published. With the same mentality that deemed the Syrian
people's uprising to be a conspiracy, the Damascus regime described the Arab
position as unacceptable interference in its internal affairs.

Where
does this leave the situation in Syria?

It
is clear that Syria is facing difficult days ahead, the regime's intransigence
will increase the intensity of its confrontation with the people’s uprising,
and its policy of suppression and abuse will mean more victims and more
arrests, which will only add to the tension and widen the division between the
regime and the people. Following the fall of the Gaddafi regime, the world's
attention will now be focused on Syria, and monitoring the developments there,
especially with regards to the move to tighten international sanctions on the
Damascus regime, in order to suffocate and isolate it. As a result of this
isolation, the regime will find itself in a difficult position, especially as
the Syrian people – who have so far confirmed their intentions to continue the
uprising – will have gained considerable moral support from watching the Libyan
rebels in Tripoli celebrating the fall of another regime that relied on
suppression and force, and which ultimately failed.

-This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 31/08/2011
-Osman Mirghani is Asharq Al-Awsat's Senior Editor-at-Large

About Me

I graduated from the French University in Beirut (St Joseph) specialising in Political and Economic Sciences. I started my working life in 1973 as a reporter and journalist for the pan-Arab magazine “Al-Hawadess” in Lebanon later becoming its Washington, D.C. correspondent. I subsequently moved to London in 1979 joining “Al-Majallah” magazine as its Deputy Managing Editor. In 1984 joined “Assayad” magazine in London initially as its Managing Editor and later as Editor-in-Chief. Following this, in 1990 I joined “Al-Wasat” magazine (part of the Dar-Al-Hayat Group) in London as a Managing Editor. In 2011 I became the Editor-In-Chief of Miraat el-Khaleej (Gulf Mirror). In July 2012 I became the Chairman of The Board of Asswak Al-Arab Publishing Ltd in UK and the Editor In Chief of its first Publication "Asswak Al-Arab" Magazine (Arab Markets Magazine) (www.asswak-alarab.com).

I have already authored five books. The first “The Tears of the Horizon” is a love story. The second “The Winter of Discontent in The Gulf” (1991) focuses on the first Gulf war sparked by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. His third book is entitled “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: From Balfour Promise to Bush Declaration: The Complications and the Road to a Lasting Peace” (March 2008). The fourth book is titled “How Iran Plans to Fight America and Dominate the Middle East” (October 2008) And the fifth and the most recent is titled "JIHAD'S NEW HEARTLANDS: Why The West Has Failed To Contain Islamic Fundamentalism" (May 2011).

Furthermore, I wrote the memoirs of national security advisor to US President Ronald Reagan, Mr Robert McFarlane, serializing them in “Al-Wasat” magazine over 14 episodes in 1992.

Over the years, I have interviewed and met several world leaders such as American President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Margaret Thacher, Late King Hassan II of Morocco, Late King Hussein of Jordan,Tunisian President Zein El-Abedine Bin Ali, Lybian Leader Moammar Al-Quadhafi,President Amine Gemayel of Lebanon,late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, Late Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat, Haitian President Jean Claude Duvalier, Late United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan,Algerian President Shazli Bin Jdid, Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Siyagha and more...